Chester Upland ordered to open its doors to charters

Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Barry Dozor on Thursday issued an order that would open up all grades in the Chester Upland School District to outsourced management as part of a financial recovery plan.

The order includes a directive for the district's receiver to solicit requests for proposal and for the district to consider “the potential need for strategic options in managing and delivering pre-kindergarten – 12th grade schools, or any variation thereof.”

“This order is intended to be a ‘road map’ for the school district, providing priority to initiatives and strategies recommended in the revised financial recovery plan,” Dozor wrote in an accompanying letter. “The order is intended to confirm authority to the receiver to move ahead with various recommendations and initiatives, including further investigation and requests for proposals for strategic initiatives.”

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Interim Receiver and former district Superintendent Gregory Thornton will leave the position later this month. He stepped in after former receiver Peter Barsz resigned in October. Dozor has appointed outgoing Superintendent Juan Baughn to take over as the new receiver May 25.

Under the language of Act 141 of 2012, which dictates Chester Upland’s “Financial Recovery Status,” the district could convert an existing school or schools to charters if doing so would result in financial savings.

Chester Community Charter School, the largest brick-and-mortar charter school in the state with more than 4,300 students, filed a petition in November asking the court to direct the district and the Pennsylvania Department of Education to issue RFPs on charters taking over elementary schools in the district as part of its financial recovery plan.

Dozor denied the charter school's petition as too vague and premature at a Dec. 4 hearing, but left open the possibility that it could be filed again. The order issued Thursday expands the scope of the original proposal to include all grade levels.

John Pund, a Certified Public Accountant who put together the recovery plan with the help of the state, district administration and other stakeholders, testified in March that the district is facing myriad financial pressures.

He noted there is no plan in place to address a 10-year settlement with brick-and-mortar charter schools that is saving the district about $10 million per year and is set to expire in 2025, and that there is an estimated $30 million required over the next three years at district schools just as a “Band-Aid” to keep them safe.

“The reason why they’re in receivership is because they have fundamentally difficult financial problems,” said Michael Churchhill, an attorney representing parent petitioners opposed to school conversion. “It doesn’t seem to me that the solution to fixing the financial problems should be on the backs of students by taking away their traditional schools, some of which have been working very well – better than charters.”

Churchhill noted the district still has not filed financial information for school years 2018 and 2019. Pund said in March that financials for the 2017/18 needed to be restated to take into account $4.9 million in payments to charter schools ordered by the Commonwealth Court. The 2018/19 audit could not be started until that was complete, he said.

Thursday’s order directs those audits to be filed within 45 days as a precondition for any management change at district schools. Dozor indicated a hearing for further review and possible corrective measures could be set if there are additional delays.

“It is going to be difficult to know how they’re going to save money if they don’t even know how much they’ve been spending,” said Churchill. “But the important thing is for the public to realize that the wheels have been set in motion to destroy the system of the schools as they currently exist and put them into private hands, and they ought to consider carefully where these proposals are coming from and the quality of them.”

Pund laid out five major areas in the plan in March that he said should be explored as soon as possible: Outsourcing transportation, facilities and finance; outsourcing management and operations of schools; completing a facilities assessment; reducing special education costs; and assessing leadership.

“Everything needs to be looked at in an out-of-the-box way, because you don’t know if there’s potential savings and efficiencies without evaluating it,” he said.

“Chester Upland School District can’t generate enough money from local sources, local property taxes, to fund its operations,” said Frank Catania, an attorney representing the charter school. “The state has not increased its funding. The charter schools have said, ‘Judge, you’ve got to consider all available options, including outsourcing different functions, allowing more charters’ – any lawful way to address this problem, because the state has not stepped up and helped out the Chester Upland School District.”

Catania said that from his reading of Thursday’s order, Dozor appears to have agreed to do just that and has put in place methods by which the district can solicit new ideas for generating revenues, cutting costs, or both.

“That’s what the order says: Allow people to submit any idea that they have, as long as it’s authorized by the school code and Pennsylvania law, and then we’ll consider those, and we are looking forward to participating in that,” said Catania. “He is basically soliciting ideas from everybody as to how these financial matters should be addressed, because the state has not addressed them and the Chester Upland School District does not have the ability to address them.”

The order additionally lays out criteria for evaluating any received proposals. Any outside provider must not only show a cost savings, but also be able to demonstrate the ability to provide a quality curriculum and extra-curricular activities, meet the needs of students with disabilities and provide alternative quality arrangements for students who do not choose to attend the conversion charters.

The order dictates that the Chester Upland School Board shall serve as a “review board” for the receiver’s recommendations, and provide advice to the receiver and the court on any recommendations for outsourcing school management.

These reviews will take place at public meetings where the community and state officials may attend and comment, according to the order, and all information regarding such proposals must be posted to the district website. The court also must approve any proposed change in management to a school or grade level through an amendment to the recovery plan.

Dozor also ordered the receiver to solicit RFPs for the potential outsourcing of functional areas of the district, including human resources, transportation, information technology, accounting and a slew of other positions. Outsourcing those areas will not require court approval, according to the order.